Posted on 04/09/2014 10:11:42 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Imagine a world where drones never have to touch the ground after takeoff. That’s what MIT PhD. candidate Joseph Moore did, and now he’s on the cusp of creating a drone that can “perch” on power lines just like birds to recharge its batteries.
Mr. Moore gave Business Insider a demonstration of the technology he’s perfecting by using a glider as proof of concept.
In short, if a drone is equipped with the a magnetometer it should be possible to make the aircraft capable of identifying magnetic fields given off by power lines, home in on the signal they emit, and then maneuver in such a way that would allow the drone to perch until fully charged.
Developing such a system for fixed wing aircraft is desirable because of their ability to carry heavier loads than those that use a quadrotor design, Business Insider reported....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Perfecctt- sitting ducks
I used to pick crows off the lines with a pellet gun when I was a kid, these won’t be much different.
Fire at will.
Another use of induction from what I understand. Just need to have the coils in the drone in the right place.
For those of you who never took first year physics in college.
The power of electricity is about differences in voltage, not the absolute voltage.
A 10000 volt line is at 10,000 volts when measured against the ground. So if you are standing on the ground and grab a 10k volt line, you will get zapped with 10k volts of electricity.
Now if you are standing on a copper plate that is hooked up to a 9999 volt line and grab hold on a 10000 volt line, the differenct is 1 volt and you will not feel much of anything.
Now when a bird lands on a high power line, one foot might feel 10,000 volts and the second foot might fee 9999.99 volts because the feet are close together.
This difference will not zap anyone or anything but is small enought to zap a bird with about 10 volts,
Now if a bird lands on a power line and you throw the bird a line connected to the ground, the bird gets zapped.
Can’t wait for PG&E or SoCal-Ed to chime in on these parasites on their transmission cables.
Look up Teds Holdover on youtube. Ted knows hitting small objects at good distance with a pellet gun.
I used to bullseye womp- rats with my T-16 back home. They’re not much bigger than 2 meters...
CC
Guess I better get back to work on that Magnetic Pulse rifle I’ve been designing.
I wonder what the penalty for frying the circuits of a snooping government drone will be?
They gotta CATCH you, first.
Unless the line the bird is standing on is insulated.
It might make more sense to get near a transmitting tower.
I don’t think most high tension lines are. It would be quite expensive.
At voltages high enough, they could siphon off significant power by deploying panels of sharp pointed spikes opposite to where they perch on the wires. The spikes would corona-off into the atmosphere, and a flow of electricity would result from the perch to the spikes.
But this would have to be very high voltage lines. The 5000 or so volt lines that feed pole pigs probably couldn’t be corona drained.
Current li chemistry does not allow as many charge/discharge cycles as you might expect, especially for high-discharge rate cells. The cells can start deteriorating after only 10-20 cycles in some instances. So the drones are going to be coming back to home base for battery replacement before long anyway.
“They gotta CATCH you, first.”
That’s the point of the drones...
One drone watches the other.
If it even uses Li-Ion. I’d think chemical fuel more efficient.
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